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Holidays 2005: Butler’s Dilemma — and Yours
By
Published: Dec 20, 2005
Category:
Beyond Classification
Yesterday, I promised a speedy return to a daily recommendation. Well, I lied. Or, more correctly, I wasn’t expecting a tsunami of responses. But I seem to have touched a nerve, and many of you wrote in, and so it seems like the best use of Butler today is to share those e-mails.
Thanks to all of you — writers and readers alike — who were willing to consider that this particular holiday season might call for a non-traditional response.
Jennifer writes:
Several years ago I worked for the gas and electric company in customer service. The week before Christmas I got a phone call from a woman who had just lost her mother and been left a bit of money. She wanted to do something nice and asked if I knew of someone she could anonymously help. I told her about a family of five I’d just spoken to — they had their electricity cut off and had no money to turn it back on. She offered to pay, I got everything sorted out, and, along the way, I told everyone how the woman who had lost her mother was helping this family and how it had inspired me to buy a few gifts and take them by this family’s house on my way home to my family. My colleagues began opening their wallets and giving me money, the meter reader who turned the electricity back on took them food, others from his local office took a tree with lights and decorations, my friends asked me if they could pre-pay on the people’s electricity bill and on and on. The generosity of these people was wonderful and heart warming.
With my carload of gifts and money, I stopped unannounced in a very poor part of town at the family’s very small, run-down house. The young mother was sitting in the front window staring blankly out onto the dirty street, a beautifully lit Christmas tree twinkling with lights behind her. When I came to the front door, she was a bit puzzled — but obviously thrilled and incredibly thankful for all the gifts.
I explained the story of the anonymous donor and the desire of so many people who just wanted to help make her family’s Christmas bright.
What she said to me has stayed with me all these Christmases since: “She’s lost her mother here at the holidays! What can I do to help her?”
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Donna Zaccaro writes:
What you and "Mrs. B" are feeling is actually reflective of what an increasing number of people are feeling this year: People are painfully aware of the millions of people who have too little or who lost everything in the wake of the some of the world’s most devastating natural disasters. Many are uncomfortable with the conspicuous consumption that increasingly marks the season, and are looking for a meaningful alternative — and finding it through WhatGoesAround.org.
Instead of buying "stuff" for family, friends and colleagues that no one needs or wants, an increasing number of Americans are choosing to make a donation in honor of the person they care about, to the charity that person cares about. This can be done easily and with no cost to either the donor or the recipient organization, through WGA, the nonprofit website I run.
To explain: WhatGoesAround.org operates a website where any individual or group can create a "Givelist™," a kind of "wish list" drawn from any of the 900,000 charities registered with the IRS. Family, friends and colleagues can then retrieve that givelist and make a contribution to an organization as a gift to the recipient. This works for any gift-giving occasion – whether it be to say Happy Holidays, Happy Birthday, Congratulations, Thanks or Sorry About your Loss. The person in whose honor the donation is made then receives an e-mail confirmation of the donation with a personalized note from the donor.
The site makes giving very easy and efficient: Individuals can do all their direct giving to any organization in just a few clicks, and they can track all donations made directly and in someone’s honor, for corporate matching or tax purposes. The site also has some innovative ways for kids to participate and be introduced to the notion of charitable giving.
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Dee writes:
I am doing less..spending less…going less…and instead trying to experience Christmas from my heart and soul, instead of from my wallet and palate. This year I don’t want it all. I just want enough — enough to feel happy…grateful…blessed. Any you know what ? Living in this county, during this time of history…it is so easy to feel blessed. If we will just stop pursuing more, and enjoy what we have…we are blessed, indeed.
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Cokie writes:
The hyper-consumption of the season seems even more obscene (and un-Christian) than usual. I too have decided to scale down gift-giving and substitute charitable donations. Only the children on my list are getting presents, and they are getting books (I’m a librarian, I can’t help it).
I’ve already informed my siblings and friends with whom I exchange gifts that this year I will be donating the money that would be spent on their presents to an Episcopal Church program that pays for tuition, board and books for girls to go to school in our sister diocese in Uganda. It is sobering to do the math and realize that the same amount I usually spend on books, DVDs, sweaters and bath oils for people who don’t really need any more stuff is enough to send two girls to school for a year.
Thanks for this holiday message. It may be enough to keep me from destroying the TV the next time I hear the JC Penney ad using ELO’s "Living Thing".
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Sam writes:
One of the things I like about reading your blog is that it never clogs up my filters, until today.
You tell us how materialistic and consumer-driven your neighborhood is, with their long limousines, long lines at Bloomingdales, and long numbers on their bonus checks.
Then you remind us, very appropriately, about the other 75% of the planet, many of whom live on the ground in cold tents, and how it has really bummed you out this consumer season.
Then — and here comes the part when my head starts to hurt — you tell us about that "professional grade espresso maker and insanely expensive coffee grinder" for yourself. And then you want us to believe the rationalization that you only did it because it pays for itself in four months. Clog. Clog.
It’s not the shiny new gizmo that is the problem for me. It’s sooo…well, us. (Just like those folks in the long cars. I would love to hear their rationalizations.) The real problem was the article’s ironic self indulgent promotion, dressed up as something else. It made me think of George Bush’s flight suit, his plastic turkey for the troops, and the flyover in New Orleans. Any article that does that to me can really spoil a festive season.
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May I respond to Sam? I don’t believe that buying an $850 coffee maker and a $300 grinder and claiming they pay for themselves in a matter of months is any kind of rationalization. Let’s do the math: Mrs. B and I spend about $10 a day at Starbucks, seven days a week — $70 each week. Divide that into $1150. You get 17 weeks, a little more than four months. Assuming these machines need little servicing, that’s not an awful deal. And consider the good we’ll be doing for small, independent coffee growers by buying Fair Trade coffee from Peace Coffee.
On the philosophical level, I suspect that you want people who think as we do to wear hair shirts and live on brown rice — as if the denial of luxury will keep us from lapsing into hypocrisy. Sorry. We seek the middle path. Our view of material goods is One Good Thing — spend more, if you must, for one quality item that lasts instead of a lot of "stuff." As we’ll be doing when we buy the commercial-grade espresso maker.
Ever come to New York, Sam? Stop up for coffee.
